The West Coast Progressive Lawyering Conference

Shaking the Foundations is a conference that brings together
progressive legal minds from the West Coast and across the country to
discuss present and future issues
within the movement, explore the role of young lawyers, and encourage
attendees to work toward social and environmental justice. The goal of
Shaking the Foundations is to connect, inspire, and educate those who
want to pursue public interest goals and careers. Thank you to all of
our panelists, speakers, practioners and attendees who made the
fifteenth Shaking the Foundations the best one yet!

Networking Opportunities

In addition to the panels and workshops, Shaking the Foundations
offers two networking opportunities for students.
On Friday, October 17th the conference will hold its "wine and cheese"
networking event. Students can
sign up for 15-minute sessions with local public-interest
practicioners, giving them
the chance to learn about potential employers early in the school year.
On Saturday, October
18th, there will be a lunch mixer allowing students and practicioners
the chance to
mingle in a less formal setting. You
can see a list of participating practioners here.

Once you register, keep an eye out for a signup for the one-on-one
mentoring!

Bay Area Students

Shakings is a forum for connecting and building the social justice
movement across schools. We hope you'll join us in making this a
successful and inspiring event! Housing may be available, check back
here to stay updated.

2014 Keynote Speaker:
Michelle Alexander

Michelle Alexander is a highly
acclaimed civil rights lawyer,
advocate, and legal scholar. In recent years, she has taught at a
number of universities, including Stanford Law School, where she was an
associate professor of law and directed the Civil Rights Clinics.
In 2005, she won a Soros Justice Fellowship, which supported the
writing of The New Jim Crow, and that same year she accepted a joint
appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
and the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. The
New Jim Crow has received rave reviews, become a New York Times
bestseller, and has been featured in national radio and television
media outlets, including NPR, The Bill Moyers Journal, the Tavis Smiley
Show, MSNBC, C-Span Washington Journal, among others. The book
won the 2011 NAACP Image Award for best non-fiction.

Prior to entering academia,
Alexander served as the Director of the
Racial Justice Project for the ACLU of Northern California, where she
coordinated the Project’s media advocacy, grassroots organizing,
coalition-building, and litigation. The Project’s priority areas
were educational equity and criminal justice reform, and it was during
those years that she launched a major campaign against racial
profiling by law enforcement, known as the “DWB Campaign” or “Driving
While Black or Brown Campaign.” In addition to her non-profit
advocacy experience, Alexander has worked
as a litigator at private law firms, including at Saperstein,
Goldstein, Demchak & Baller, in Oakland, California, where she
specialized in plaintiff-side class action lawsuits alleging race and
gender discrimination.

Alexander is a graduate of Stanford
Law School and Vanderbilt
University. Following law school, she clerked for Justice Harry A.
Blackmun on the United States Supreme Court, and for Chief Judge Abner
Mikva on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C.
Circuit. She currently devotes her time to freelance
writing, consulting with advocacy organizations committed to building
racial justice movements, and, most importantly, raising her three
young children -- the most challenging and rewarding job of all.